My Struggle With Depression, Alcohol Abuse and Weight Gain… Losing it All And Finding Happiness

That’s what I have been thinking about doing again. Escaping a life that no longer brings me joy, nor does it make any sense.

I used to dream of going to Europe-England, Ireland. get a job on a farm somewhere, live a quiet life as an Irish lass. Now I just want out. The continental US is good… I need to be within driving distance of family.

Everyone has demons. Everyone deals with them differently. Some people drink, some smoke, some do drugs. Still others have sex with strangers. Are those evils? Or warped coping mechanisms? If they’re warped, are they really a way to cope? Or just a way to provide momentary escape?

Is it necessarily a “demon”, or “evil” if it provides a form of escape-No matter how temporary? What is it that makes something “evil”? Something that huirts yourself? Or something that hurts others? If you knowingly do things that hurt yourself, does that make you evil?

If a form of escape hurts noone but the escapee, is it bad? Is it wrong to trade a break in the pain for a temporary escape? At what point does the escape become an addiction? A problem?

These are the questions that need asking ~That need answering. The questions I am afraid to ask, afraid to have answered. The possible answers scare me. Almost as much as the not knowing does.

Changes. They happen all the time. The seasons change. Day changes into night, and night into day. Babies grow… They change from babies to toddlers, toddlers to children, children to teens, teens to adults. People change their hair color.

There have been a lot of changes in my life lately. Good schanges. I am single again, closing the door on a big part of my life. 41/2 years. From 24 to almost 29. And out of that have come the changes in me.

I am calmer. I don’t feel the erratic energy I did for so long. I don’t drink myself into a stupor to escap emy life. I feel at peace with myself. I sip wine instead gulp, i savor the flavor and the color, instead of searching for the numbness it would bring me.

It is strange to say the phrase “ex-boyfriend”. To think in single terms-“I”, as opposed to “we”. There is no more “he and I”. There is just me. And I am ok with that. I like being by myself right now. To have the time do be introspective. To relearn who “I” am, outside the realm of being a “we”. To see myself as a whole, instead a half of something else.

Making up your own logic. I used to tell myself, and everyone else within earshot, who may or may not have been listening, that contrary to popular belief, I did not have a problem. I reasoned that I got up every morning, regardless of how much I had had to drink the night before and went to work. And that, the day I could no longer do that, I would admit to having a problem.

Yes, I was coming to work every day. Semi-conscious, sleep-deprived, and hung over. But I was here. Not doing a whole lot but trying to focus on staying awake, but I was here. And, needless to say, it was straight back to the bar just about every night. If there was no one at the bar for me to hang out with, I would just go home and drink wine.

I am hesitant to call myself an alcoholic. I never felt a ‘need’ to drink. I didn’t crave alcohol, didn’t feel a need to have it to steady myself. A chronic abuser of alcohol… Yes. A problem drinker… Yes. I have never gotten to the point where I would start drinking in the middle of the day, or crack a beer with breakfast.

I do have a little moderation problem, in that once I start, I have trouble stopping. There have been nights where I have been able to do this, and have been inordinately proud of myself for doing that, but those have been few and far between.

I am trying, and getting better at my self control. Thank God I have a wonderful support group in my friends and family.

72 Hours… That is how long it has been since I have had a drink. That is the longest I have been without a drink in I don’t even know how long. I feel better than I have in years. I feel refreshed, alive. Focused.

I also don’t feel bloated. Which is a strange feeling. I know it has only been three days, but looking in the mirror, it seems that a little of the fullness has left my face. My knuckles on my hands are a little more prominent. My anle bones are a little more evident. (I have always had cankles, just not this bad).

I know that most of this is just water weight loss… The fluids I had retained form weeks of binging. But, I am down to 236lbs today. 4 pounds since I started this blog a week ago. That feels monumentous to me.

I feel like I may be able to do it this time. Lose the weight. Cut down ~drastically~ on the drinking. Conquer my depression. With the help of Prozac, anyway…

I had a very rare burger on Saturday. I have always eaten my red meat that way, and have never had a problem. I also met some friends out for some cocktails that night. So, when I woke up Sunday morning feeling ‘not quite right’, I figured it probably had something to do with the cocktails.

I had to run an errand about an hour away, and my stomach was really feeling very unsettled on the way out. Usually, when that happens I will drink a small amount of milk, which usually seems to take care of the problem. So, I trieds that, and it seemed to work. Until the return trip.

I was about a quarter of the way into my return trip when the nausea hit me like a cold wave on a hot day. Unfortunately, I had no time to either pull over, or find a receptacle. So I vomited all over myself. Not my proudest moment. All I could think was that I still had about an hour until I got home. Covered in vomit.

Then the lower intestine discomfort started. All I could think was ‘I can’t even stop anywhere, because I am covered in throw up’. All I wanted to do was get home as fast as possible. Which I was nearly able to do… Until I ran into a parade… And a road block. And a cop.

The cop was stopping traffic, directing everyone to the ‘alternate route’. The cop was going really slow. The cop should have listened when I told him how sick I was. He should have taken note when I pointed out the vomit coating the front of my t-shirt. The cop should have backed up more when I flung open my drivers’ side door. Yup, I threw up all over the cops’ feet. Not once, but twice. And when I finally attempted to navigate the ‘alternate route’… I wound up going in one big circle. Not cool, when one is covered in ones’ own sick.

I finally got home. The first thing I did was race upstairs and fling my filthy clothing in the washer. The second was to allow my bowels to finally explode. The third was a shower. A blessedly warm, cleansing shower. I finally wrapped myself in a big fluffy towel and collapsed on the couch.

I woke up a little later, dying of thirst I drank a bottle of water and some Diet Coke. Then I had more diarrhea. Then, I felt all those delicious liquids surging back up my esophagus. I grabbed the trash can and emptied the meager contents of my stomach into it. And then dragged it back to the couch.

I spent Sunday afternoon sleeping off and on. Finally, about 8pm, I roused myslef long enough to go to the store and get some stomach-bug necessities. I.e., Saltines, Chicken Soup and Pedialyte. It’s pretty sad when Pedialyte actually tastes good.

Sunday night was pretty much a repeat of Sunday afternoon… Sleep off and on. Then Monday morning came… Boy, did I feel drained. I called in sick at work, just to give myself time to rest, plaus my stomach was really hurting me. Monday was a repeat of Sunday… Sleep off and on all day, eat a little something… Sleep off and on throughout the night.

I feel much better today. Still a little ‘off’, in te sense that my stomach still feels a little queasy, and my appetite is pretty poor.

But the upside: I haven’t had any alcohol in 48 hours. And I don’t even want any.

When I was 22 or 23, I had a nervous breakdown. I actually carved a slit in my left wrist with a regular old steak knife. I then walked very calmly into the living room and told my Mom to call 911.

I had gone out drinking the night before, and the guy I was dating at the time ~that I had been in LOVE with for years~ decided to ditch me for one of my whore friends. I think that was the first time in my life that I felt absolutely nothing. I wouldn’t say I was trying to kill myself, I just needed to feel something. And I didn’t even feel that.

I left home about a month later. I found a job online, packed my bags and got on a bus. I ran away is what it boils down to. I should have seen an emerging pattern, but I didn’t. For me, escape was either through liquor or to run away. In this case, running away was a good thing. I escaped my life and straightened out. I dropped all the people who were dead weight in my life.

I came home a new person. Happy, unmedicated (I had been on Prozac for a while before I left). I felt whole. I had my small, carefully selected group of friends, and really only drank on the weekends-like a normal person. Then I made the mistake of allowing HIM back into my life.

HE was a mistake that I kept repeating over the course of several years. Someone more broken than myself, and therefore someone I could try to fix. Except that there are some people who just can’t be put back together again. HE is one of those. HE got me pregnant at the end of 2003.

I terminated, let me say that right off the bat. HE was not someone I could have a baby with, and to be honest, I was in no way ready. It was a decision that I would like to say I struggled with, but I didn’t. And while I have struggled with it since, I haven’t regretted it. It was shortly after that that I started drinking excessively again.

I got my first DUI a month and a half later. I am lucky I didn’t kill someone. I spent a night locked up, I had to go through an alcohol class, pay fines… But, it could have been so much worse. After I got my license back, I behaved for a while.

And then I met my current boyfreind. We have been together for 4 years, and he says we will get married someday. His hesitance/reluctance to move forward in our realtionship has been a cause of sadness for me. I love him dearly, but I sometimes wonder if I will be in a holding pattern for the rest of my life. What killed me was when my Nana died before we could get married. I so badly wanted her to see that.